TRIGGER/ CONTENT WARNING: Our School of Music, in welcoming each of you to the Friday night performances of the Brandon University Jazz Festival, acknowledges that you come to this event with your own unique life experiences and that these experiences contribute to how you hear and perceive information.  Friday night’s concerts will feature performances of Joni Mitchell’s “Cherokee Louise”, a heartbreaking and poignant depiction of a child who suffered abuse at the hands of her foster parent. 

Joni Mitchell has always been a huge advocate of Indigenous cultural reclamation and had been gifted a traditional Saulteaux name on her 75^th birthday.  Mitchell is well aware of the various atrocities directed toward marginalized Indigenous people and their culture.  Her song, Cherokee Louise, highlights the voicelessness and abuse that often occurs for fostered or adopted Indigenous children.  This song is a musical reminiscence of Mitchell’s real-life childhood friend Mary.  Here Mitchell uses the misrepresentative term Cherokee, which is often applied to any person of native north-American heritage; however, instead of promoting the pan-indigenous implications and ignorance of its historical use, this application acknowledges that many Indigenous children from all corners of Turtle Island share the story of Cherokee Louise.

As some of you may find the lyrics of this song triggering, we will clearly announce this song with a verbal trigger warning and provide a window prior to its performance so any trauma survivors (along with any of their support people) who believe this song will be triggering feel welcome to leave the auditorium for its performance.  Likewise, we will leave enough time following its conclusion so that those same audience members have time to return to their seats.  We include this piece of music on our program because it is an extraordinary example of music’s ability to convey the human experience in ways that can fundamentally lead us to deeper understandings that, we hope, lead to increased empathy and compassion in all of our daily lives.